Let's talk about Chipotle. The massive fast food company just made the decision to raise its wages to an average of $15/hour for all employees. As a result, Chipotle made a statement that said it was raising its prices about 4% to cover labor expenses. Then, The New York Times took their word for it and ran a story with the headline, "Chipotle will increase its menu prices as labor costs rise," and – unsurprisingly – Republicans used the story as a scare tactic to convince the public that raising wages is bad.

Let's get this straight: Chipotle is really only raising its prices by a couple of dimes or nickels per meal, so there's no need to panic about unaffordable burritos. But even so, this massive international fast food company wasn't forced to raise prices because it was struggling to pay line cooks a couple extra dollars an hour. More likely, Chipotle raised their prices because it gave its CEO a $24 million BONUS in 2020 because, well, the pandemic was hard (that total compensation for the CEO comes out to $38 million in 2020 alone!). And, it announced that they will add an additional $100 million to its stock buyback program, all to enhance shareholders’ value.

What's more, the CEO's salary was 2,898 times more than the median Chipotle worker's salary of $13,127 in 2020 – a completely unlivable wage. Yes, the chain recently raised its wages for all employees to an average of $15 per hour. The key word? "Average." Of course, that means some employees will still be making well below that.

Republicans and neoliberals are spreading corporate lies about raising wages, when really it comes down to covering the costs of CEO and shareholder enrichment. That's why our team created this quiz to set the record straight about raising wages – and we're hoping to get 5,000 people to take the quiz before it closes at 11:59 p.m. tonight:

TAKE THE QUIZ: What really caused Chipotle to raise its prices by a quarter or dime per meal?

$24 million CEO bonus: [link removed]

Increasing low-level wages: [link removed]

Of course, Chipotle doesn't want to blame its price increase on its CEO taking home $23.8 million more than the company projected. It would rather blame the price increase on the low-level workers who are barely scraping by. And The New York Times blindly published Chipotle's press release (without any mention of CEO salary or stock buybacks) even though the company never supported its claims that the price increase is due to raising wages. Maybe The New York Times should change their slogan from "All the News That's Fit to Print" to "All the non-fact-checked press releases that are fit to print." It doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

The Times story also doesn't mention that the company is in the middle of a huge stock buyback campaign. Sakshi Agarwalla writes at Seeking Alpha that "[i]n an effort to enhance shareholders' value, [Chipotle] restarted its stock repurchase plans and [has] announced [an] additional $100 million for stock buyback, bringing [it] to a total $153.8 million repurchase plan." By the end of the first quarter, Chipotle had repurchased $61 million in stock. Altogether, Chipotle has dedicated nearly $200 million to executive and shareholder payouts in the last few months.

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To be clear, I'm only singling the Times out as an example here because they're supposed to be the gold standard of journalism – the truth is that a number of outlets repeated Chipotle's claims without investigating the numbers.

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The complete failure of many legitimate news sources to investigate these claims should be a learning moment for business journalists. If you're simply repeating the information given to you in a press release from a corporation's PR department, you're not in the news business – you're volunteering for the company's marketing campaign.

So we're setting the record straight NOW – because huge news outlets are falling for corporate marketing schemes and spreading misinformation. We need 5,000 people to learn more about raising wages and help us spread the truth. So please, take our quiz before 11:59 p.m. to test your knowledge and learn more:

TAKE THE QUIZ: What really caused Chipotle to raise its prices by a quarter or dime per meal?

$24 million CEO bonus: [link removed]

Increasing low-level wages: [link removed]
Thank you,

Paul

Are you fired up to finally build an economy that works for all Americans? Ready to learn more from the world’s leading economic and political thinkers? Listen to the Pitchfork Economics podcast now!

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